Tuesday, February 28, 2012

The wave runs foreAnd frictionless untilIt meets the shoreIt rises to a spillIn changing amplitude and spaceAn ever-moving hillBefore which quick sandpipers chaseThe waves that stir their food upon the shoreBeneath the foamy fractal laceThat in their power willCreate destroy this fractal placeA cormorant deft-dives for fish beforeA rainbow breaks upon the faceOf a new wave to fillThe human mind with nature’s graceAnd every seabird’s billI’ll watch some moreThis natural churning millCreative war

Saturday, February 25, 2012

I am the son of suns, each atom bornFrom supernovae, all the atoms shornAway to leave behind a neutron corpseWhose spinning density near-spacetime warpsUntil the time beside it slows and bends.They made the atoms on which life depends,The iron, nickel making up earth’s core,The oxygen that laps up on the shoreWhen it’s combined with hydrogen, the skyOf oxygen and nitrogen. I lieHere with my stardust eyes and see the starsThat die by iron in the passing cars.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

We search the desert sandsfor butterflies---the onewhich reflects the colors swirlingwithin us, making uswho we are. I thinkmine is small and blue---it wants to be bigger, a beautiful blueand black bird-wing, wingsalmost a foot wide, impossiblenot to see, impossible to ignore.How many caterpillarsare out there, masquerading as butterflies? Can't see wee themfor their false wings?

I lived with a caterpillar once---I thought she was a butterfly.In truth, she never matured.

So I search these desert sandsfor other butterflies---butterflieswith wings of gold, reflectingthe sun so you cannot see them, mistake themfor something other than butterflies---until they take off, driftinglight on the desert winds. Her shinemakes her difficult to see, difficult to obtain,though I must obtain herif my own butterfly is to expandinto the blue and black bird-wing.

So I search, knowing I may instead---certainly will in the end---find a black-winged butterflythat will take me finally awayto the end.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

I hear the radio speaking to me,speaking of fuzzy kittens lostunder houses ready to burnat the first spark. Whereare the rains to douse the firesraging in us, tearing down the treeswe planted to protect our inner houses?Where is this barricade, this fencethat helps us make our neighbors friends,hiding cats hunting micein secret holes in the boards and trees,peaking out with their shining eyes,lifting feet to scratch their heads,afraid the movement attracts the catslurking --- pounce! Death is immanentas it's tossed in the air. We must agreethat we feel more for the mouse than we relateto the cat, having been tossed too many timesinto the air ourselves,an air filled with waves, sending soundsinvisible, inaudible to us, inviting our neighborsin, asking them to make themselves comfortablein the seat of our being, a place once protected---no more.No more, lest we lose ourselveswithin ourselves, staringinto the darkness that tempts us in,into comfort, protection, permanentcomfort and protection, a death before deathwe cannot endure to see in othersas we peer from our hold in boards and trees,afraid it could be us, wondering oftenwhy it isn't,why our terrors were far less worsethan theirs, wonderingwhen it will be our turn, havingfelt the darkness creeping, drawingour eyes to it, into the warmth,the comfortless comfort.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Im boredfloored, soaredseeming sailing high on winded skystupid, stupid, stupidIt all sounds the same every time I writewhatever comes to mindpoeticallycontinual rhyming – internal, alliterative,same sounds over and over,S and Iwhy?Poe’s long O for sorrow –even the sentence above sounds sorrowful –But why my S and I?S is slippery, serpentine,I lifts the soul high –how can high and slippery serpentinepossibly come together? –a formalist problem –the postmodernists knoweven if I don’t.

Friday, February 17, 2012

In Mexican pools low on iodineThe axolotls can’t become adult –Mature infants swimming as a result,With pale pink gills all feathery and fine.Here we, observant infant species, learnSomething about itself while watching child-Adults that swim and mate. Here we're beguiled,In this old youth that we young elders yearn.We look into these pools, these mirrors clear,Which show a stage we even now go through,Young apes who immature to people whoCan then love axolotls we find dear.In these large salamanders we can seeThe deepest source of our humanity.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

As the waves crash on the shore, shellsAre in fair fractals of tense time –As are we. Wisdom unveils vainOur beliefs, more we are much moreThan the ebb energy gyresFrom the folds formed by the space spreadFrom the big bang. We’re the form frothedAs the time twisted the waves whiteAnd complex. Patterns emerged, mindsThat could see seashells in stars strungInto groups, growth which would make man.We’re but dense droplets of wise waves.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

I am a lion, a high-soaring bird,
I'm coiling and hissing a softly hot word.
I am a spirit with amorous wings,
A mouth that can only spill words if it sings.
I am light, not shadow or gravity –
I am a painful and dark black cavity.
Do you know what all I say? I’m smiling
And as I laugh, do you know who I’m styling
My soul against? An abyssal dragon
Has flown into dark clouds and sky – an agon,
War whipping my soul into strong and hard
Long-living spirit that will always stand guard
And bring a gift for all of mankind. Gift?
It’s in a box, a box brought up from a rift,
A box I carry down and carry up –
I cannot touch lunch or drink from a cool cup
Until my body and my blood turn warm
And I unfold again my old human form.
A monstrous animal or living light –
A spirit that in its good growth fashions flight
From fast-growing wings that lift us aloft –
Shall all of us grow hard, or stupid, soft?
I had to go down to climb mountaintops,
This light gift . . . I laugh, so that no laughing stops.

Monday, February 13, 2012

The sun rose and shone at last when you,
Iris of garden, sky, and eye, my light
That colorized my life with your clear dew
To prism sky and field and fill my sight,
Yanked me from my long polar night. My soul
Filled finally to thaw the frost that filled
Up every crack, now sealed – you make me whole.
Come, my beloved, you’re the Spring that killed –
Knifed – Winter with your sharpened rays. What joy
And love you brought to me, your flowers spread,
Nourishing me forever, to enjoy
Dew dripping from your petals, floral bed
Spread out before me, crocuses that peek
Up through the last crisp snow, the daffodils
Crowd narcissistically, the tulips seek,
Know what they want – you know they want their fill –
More tulips to fill up the bed. My eyes
Yearn but could never take enough of these
Desirous colors in, and so my sighs
Infest the garden. Could I ever please,
Caressing leaves and flowers, you my love?
Keep filling up my life with living sun,
Dearest, and I’ll pick up my garden glove,
Yank weeds that grow up, for you are my one.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

The whiskered workers wind their ways along
The tunnels, tense with too much tough demand
Upon them. Quick and quaint, the Queen requests
They do their duty, dig and dredge their nests
And find the food for all to feast – a brand
Of justice promised, paid by plea and prong.

They’re promised beauty, but they’re blind, bereft
Of choice, they choose their chattel life. They cheer
The Queen who rules the rest with righteous reason,
The smooth pink skin is split by her in season
As punishment for making movements mere
Moments too late. The lonely low are left.

The people pleased by power pray that we
Will finally find our fate and follow them
Into the tunnels so the taught can turn
The rest around – a rat’s nest rulers spurn
And jeer, while jawing, “Justice is a gem,”
To them they flail and flog. “We’ll force you free.”

The naked mole rats nest in narrow naves,
Obeying blindly, bound by DNA,
They live a life the liars love to preach,
For man a terror twisted tempters teach.
Such subtle slavery simply spurns the clay
That man is made of – most aren’t merry slaves.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Why have gaslight in an electric age?Why feel the need to be transportedBack to a time none of us remembers,So far removed it has turned cliché,A time rustic and quaint, timeFlattening difference into utopia?A Parisian café longed forBy a man who never left the States.Narrow streets, full cafes, buildingsCenturies old. Or,So he’s heard. A romantic placeOf Hemingways and Fitzgeralds, everythingAn off-focus impression.At night, lamplight, neonGoes unseen. A mythTo be sure – uncommon, butNot unseen. Waiters seatSingle customers with others –Discussions, wine, and bread untilGas-lit flame replaces day,Flickering faces orange, the deepShadows drawing wisdom outOf every café face.A woman, in short shirt –A navel, orange in the lamplight –Draws the eye to new shadows unseenIn a clean electric-light place.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Here I sit with gastroenteritis,Wondering at the cause as here I lie.Could it be Lactobacillus,Bacteroides or E. coli?Maybe it was something that I ate,Perhaps some seafood, I don't know.If that's the case, it could be Aeromonas,Plesiomonas, or Vibrio.Of all the choices that I thinkIt's likely Vibrio; which could it be?It's likely not vulnificus or choleraOr I'd be good and dead, you see.And so for a tiny taste of crabMy stomach's put up quite a fuss,Not for the meat that I have eaten,But parahemolyticus.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Too many voices vying for attention in my head –
So many voices I can’t hear the words that should be said.
I ought to sing a song of envy’s evil, wicked strife
That wants to take what others have and threatens with a knife.
I ought to write on how emotions socially evolved
And through each epoch’s epics see their paradox is solved.
I ought to write about my Faust, a presidential play,
A tragedy that moves the morals plaguing us today.
I ought to write about the different reasons which arise
In every social order – in their unity we’re wise.
I ought to write some poetry about my sacred love
Who makes me feel like I can conquer, raise myself above.
I ought to write abut economists’ deep need to go
Watch plays and thus will learn of human action at the show.
I ought to sing a song of celebration of the joy
Of wife and daughter, son and soon another baby boy.
So many voices vying for attention I can’t hear –
Too many voices which demand their verses now appear.

About Me

I am the author of "Diaphysics," a poet, playwright, and interdisciplinary scholar. I am married and have a daughter and two sons. I have a Ph.D. in the Humanities, a M.A. in English, and a B.A. in recombinant gene technology and chemistry.